At the request of our Japanese partners, we have reopened these talks [about territories]. What command is given in this case in judo? You probably know better than I do: Yoshi (continue). So we will continue.

We in Russia have always considered Russians and Ukrainians to be one people. I still think so.

I have called President Obama, and President Obama called me on various issues. This is part of our regular contacts, there is nothing unusual or extraordinary about it.

This gentleman has taken on the very fashionable theme of fighting corruption and I say again: In order to fight corruption you have to be crystal clear yourself. But there are problems here, and in this regard I unfortunately have a suspicion that this is just a way of getting votes and not a genuine desire to solve the problem.

However, personally, I see this as not having the right to abuse this trust [among the citizens of Russia and Japan], and any decision we reach should correspond to the national interests of the Russian Federation.

In 2000 the then Prime Minister of Japan [Yoshirō Mori] asked me to return to this process, this conversation, these talks, and to do so, incidentally, on the basis of the 1956 declaration. I agreed. Since then we have conducted dialogue in this regard but I cannot say that our Japanese partners and friends have remained within the limits of the 1956 declaration.

I have criticized foreign policy, but that does not mean that we should agree with everything. Indeed, we criticize a lot of things, we think that our partners make many mistakes [may be we make mistakes too, no one is immune to making mistakes], but as for the economy, I repeat that, in my opinion, the European Commission and the leading European economies are acting very pragmatically and are on the right path.